The Issues Really Don't Favor Dan Newhouse, But Who's Paying Attention?

Dan Newhouse Cutting a Ribbon

Congressman Dan Newhouse’s 2020 election year activity seems to consist mostly of meaningless photo ops, something he's learned to do well in his 3 terms as the Representative of Washington's 4th Congressional District. Newhouse includes the following issues on his campaign website:

• Budget and Taxes
• Seniors
• Immigration
• Hanford
• Agriculture
• Veterans

Newhouse has a very brief blurb under each heading. Suffice it to say, his ideas about what matters in those areas aren't going to convince any Progressive voters that he's the man to represent them. An examination of what's actually happening under any one of these areas could give even the most committed Republican voter pause, consider "Budget and Taxes," for example. But most Republicans aren't even going to read what Newhouse has written. They'll just vote for him out of habit; historically about 65% of the vote in this district goes to the Republican candidate. Christine Brown did well to get 37.2% of the vote in 2018.

What might convince Independents to give McKinley (@Doug_McKinley) a second look, and might even cause some moderate Republicans to scratch their heads and rethink their unwavering support of good-ole Dan, is what's missing from Dan's list of issues, i.e.:

• Health care
• Trade
• Climate Change

These are issues that should concern any voter in the sprawling, ag-intense, rural, 4th District of Eastern Washington. 

 Health Care

Newhouse voted some 56 times with his Republican colleagues to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Never happened, so they went about doing everything they could to undermine it. President Donald Trump has said multiple times he'd have a "beautiful, fantastic" plan in place, the last time it was before August of this year. That never happened, either. Now, Trump is suing to overturn the ACA. He’s installing a conservative justice to replace RBG, who already opined that the ACA was unconstitutional.

Rural hospitals/clinics in the 4th are practically broke. All while COVID-19 is raging. Even those who survive an attack, are likely to be left with pre-existing conditions. If the ACA goes, so goes coverage for them. Furthermore, Trump’s 2017 tax cut, taken together with the economic impact of the pandemic, means that big cuts are looming for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. If I read the census tables correctly, there are about 228,000 people in Newhouse’s district covered only by Medicare or Medicaid.

Trade

The retaliatory tariffs resulting from Trump’s trade war with China have hurt Washington’s farmers.  Dairy exports to China dropped by 75%, fruit exports dropped by over 16%, and wheat exports dropped by an amazing 94%. But Trump is buying off the farmers with massive taxpayer-funded bailouts; the Administration gave farmers across the country $12 billion in 2018 and another $16 billion in 2019, as part of the Market Facilitation Program (MFP), aka “socialism.” But  bailout money is distributed based on acreage and not a farmer’s need, so about half of the money (47%) went to the largest 10% of operations across the country.

Climate Change

Steve Ghan (@steveghan1), who leads the Tri-Cities chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby has tried multiple times to get Newhouse to join the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus. Newhouse won't do it. There is not one single Republican from Washington on the caucus. Agriculture accounts for $51 billion (13%) of Washington’s yearly economic activity. The counties that play the biggest role in the state’s agricultural economy are Grant and Yakima.

The Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington has for some time assessed the consequences of a warming climate on Washington. In a 2019 report, “No Time to Waste,” they wrote, "Warming is expected to increase the number of very hot days and the chance of both droughts and floods, bring larger and more frequent wildfires to both sides of the Cascades and challenge agriculture through stresses on irrigation supplies and changing pests and diseases.” They went on identify health impacts, increased wildfires, impacts on water availing, etc. Why is Newhouse, like so many other Republicans,  ignoring this? Because of vested interests in a carbon-intensive economy.

Congressman Newhouse's demonstrated appreciation for environmental issues generally is reflected in the ratings he receives from various environmental NGOs, i.e.:

• Defenders of Wildlife -- 0%
• Clean Water Action -- 0%
• Washington Sierra Club -- 0%
• Environment America -- 3%
• League of Conservation Voters -- 4%
• National Parks Conservation Assoc. -- 4%

 Doug McKinley

Check out Doug McKinley's campaign website, and Facebook page. Attend one of his weekly town hall meeting via Zoom. Learn more about what Doug stands for and help give our district a better chance to choose a better candidate, donate to Doug's campaign.